Why I Salute Grade 1 teachers

 (borrowed pic from: HERE)

Yesterday saw me rushing from my LATCH interviews to my boys' school, where I was volunteered volunteered to help with the dice game for the Grade 1 kids.

I was late for the briefing, but since I had a general idea how to play it, I figured it wouldn't be to difficult to wing it. Apparently, that was the *easy* part.

After the briefing, I proceeded with 3 other parents (it was generally four parents to a class of around 38 kids) to our assigned section. All of us were assigned to sections other than our sons'.


The 3 other moms and I waited outside while the class adviser briefed the boys and (was it joy in her eyes I saw?) left us to fend (yes, FEND) for ourselves. The minute we stepped into the classroom and they greeted us good afternoon, it took only a few more SECONDS for the wonder (who we generally were) to dissipate into a room of noise.

All 38 of them. You.will.not.believe.the.amount.of.noise.38.little.kids.can.make. You will not believe it when I tell you that we had to strain our voices several times to try to get them to shut up, and they didn't. It took one bellow by a co-parent and that *look* for them to stop -- for like, around 10 seconds. The minute the parent turned around and left the room (she wasn't assigned to our room), the chaos (yes, chaos) started again. I wanted to run out after her and leave. FOREVER.

But I couldn't. So, two of us started yelling. When I finally had *a bit* of attention, I told them that we will not start the game until they were seated and quiet so I could tell them the policies (which we made as we went along). We had only barely 2 seconds to think up of all the policies!

It didn't help that there were kids who were just plain pissing their classmates off. I had two or three boys come up to me to complain about this kid who kept kicking or hitting or tickling or whatever-ing them. I wanted to let the kid stand outside the classroom, I swear! All my practice about "gentle parenting" and "positive parenting" flew out the window!

The entire workout game lasted for 40 minutes. Those forty-frigging-minutes felt like FOREVER! (Well, okay, maybe not forever, it felt like 10 hours.)

Now, I understand why the teachers need to be strict. In a sea of 38 kids, we were 4 parents and we were nearly (I say nearly, because we came out alive) drowned by the kids. If you were the only one there, you need to be tough. You need to have patience the length of a trip around the world, twice! You need to have understanding why some kids act a certain way or why they don't.

And because of this, I salute you, grade 1 teachers! (special mention to P's grade 1 adviser who was handling the section we were in then, Mrs SM!)